


Bad Scoping Mechanisms

by Monyas



Series: Bad Scoping Mechanisms [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Bucky Barnes, M/M, Protective Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 21:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20607554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monyas/pseuds/Monyas
Summary: Like, the general public hates Tony Stark for having been a weapons manufacturer but actually he was pretty popular while he was still in the weapons industry so one wonders, who would have been a fan of Stark Industries before Afghanistan? Military, alphabet agencies, private security, hitmen and assassins? ...Hydra assassins?-In which the Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes, is an avid fan of Tony Stark for reasons.-





	Bad Scoping Mechanisms

The asset hadn't been paying much attention to what exactly he had been using to dispatch his former handlers and technicians. His mind had been on a mission, a self assigned one for once, and focusing on eliminating the targets who had his _ words _ before they had the chance to speak them had been taking all his processing power. 

Later, in a safe house somewhere in Latveria, the soldier would secure the perimeter and do a post-mission maintenance on the arm. Bucky would then shower, eat, sit on the floor to start inspecting his stash and stop to stare. The rifle in front of him was a _beauty_. All polished metal and sharp angles, high quality mechanisms and robust frame, and somewhere in his mind the soldier in him did a performance review of his latest (and only successful) escape and came up with the most impressive numbers he had ever done in his entire career as a sniper, either willing or unwilling. He had memories of shooting the driver of the armored vehicle chasing after his bike and watching as the bullet pierced clean through two vehicles instead of one plus the passengers within in an incredible display of firepower and precision that nobody, not even him, had been expecting. 

And as both Bucky and the soldier in him were both partial to guns in all their variants he couldn't help but cringe at the memory that followed of him slamming the state of the art rifle into the head of a scout that had managed to track him down and sending blood and brain matter to splash all over it.

"I'm sorry," Bucky said, his voice rough from disuse, "No weapon deserves that kind of treatment. Not you, nor me."

He petted the poor rifle’s stained scope awkwardly in apology and proceeded to carefully take it apart, painstakingly cleaning every piece, checking all its components for damage and marveling at the uniqueness of its design. There was a brand next to its serial number, half invisible and placed almost absently above a hyphen was a stylized 'T.S.'. 

It looked more like a signature than a logo. 

***

Six months later, a whole lot of independent assassination contracts later, finds Bucky with a small but respectable collection of Stark arsenal. Including, much to his delight, an entirely undetectable handgun made of probably-not-ceramic that could have put the fictional Glock 7 to shame and an extremely bright red balisong that became a multi-tool knife depending on how you flipped it open. He had yet to discover the whole range of possibilities for that last one. 

And of course he carried the Stark rifle everywhere. He had found out that it was apparently a one of a kind prototype made by _ the _ Tony Stark personally that had never gone into fabrication. To think it had been forgotten in the bowels of a hydra vault, next to the soldier's own cryo chamber. What a waste.

The handgun he had scavenged from the private collection of an arms dealer who had tried to scam him when he had tried to do honest business with him. The red balisong he bought ‘legally’ with a false identity and a drug lord's secret savings.

He took pride in it. It had been a limited edition.

Bucky didn't even care that the red crashed horribly with all his black gear. 

***

"No."

Bucky glared at his burner phone and resisted the urge to throw it into the sewers in disgust. 

"What? They told me you'd get the job done. Make it look like an accident and erase all traces of the contrary as long as I pay. What, the half million not enough for you?"

Bucky felt dirty just talking to this, ugh, this sacrilegious person. He didn't even care about the money, or about losing a customer, just nope. Hard limit. 

"I'm not taking the job."

"Do you have any idea who you are refusing?," The voice's presumptuous tone was granting on his hearing, his elitist accent was making his left arm twitch and his inflection was asking for a punch to his privates, "Your contact said you do good work but I see it's all talk. I can get you blacklisted if you don't-" 

Bucky gave up and threw the phone into the closest sewer with enough force he could vaguely hear a crunch from down below. It was okay, not like it was a Starkphone or anything actually worth keeping. 

Imagine the gall of some people, asking him to assassinate _Tony Stark_. 

Asking _him_ to assassinate Tony Stark.

Ridiculous.

***

"Oh no."

Bucky was going to cry. 

"Please no."

He was going to start bawling any moment now. He felt his hands tremble and his heartbeat stutter in panicky disbelief as the tv news announced his worst possible nightmare. Bucky didn't think even hydra had ever managed to make him feel so sad. Hurt, scared and angry, sure of course. But this was the kind of sadness that was going to end up actually breaking him into tiny little pieces. 

The room was silent as if in shock and then a group of veterans started cursing and banging their table in frustration and the stranger sitting by the bar next to Bucky, who he vaguely recognized as a local gang member, patted him on the shoulder in commiseration. 

"It was too good to last." He said shaking his head and Bucky felt like tearing up. 

In the background the news reporter kept going, "-announced this morning that they were abandoning weapons production. Tony Stark himself-" 

Why couldn't he have nice things? 

***

Bucky was a millionaire. The moment Stark arms production ceased, his collection, now triple in size, could sell for six figures. His rifle alone was worth a small fortune in the black market. 

Not that he could ever sell his baby. 

His collection made him rich but since he wasn't remotely contemplating selling anything, well, he was broke. Broke and in need of a job, and in some sort of desperate denial of reality he forced his latest fake identity to contort into a navy officer (ugh, the army side of him had been screaming nonsense at him ever since he did) and submitted a job application at Stark Industries. 

The logic being that surely, _surely_, Tony Stark wasn't going to deprive his own security team from the best equipment. And the best of the best, even with a couple months of Hammer monopolizing the weapons trade in Tony Stark's absence, was still Stark made. 

Also, ugh, Hammer. What a jerk. 

Their small arms customer service was known to be horrid. 

The fact that Bucky got the job immediately confirmed that the security at Stark Industries was sorely lacking. No wonder Tony Stark had gotten kidnapped, and of course it was because he got kidnapped in the first place that he then decided to stop inventing weapons. Bucky was just gonna have to solve this issue one step at a time. 

First, if nobody hurt Tony Stark again then maybe he'd feel secure enough to go back to creating the most deadly badass guns of all time.

Second, if Bucky took care of the people who kidnapped Tony Stark in the first place maybe he'd get rewarded with a dagger or two. Stark guns were amazing but handmade Stark blades were lethal works of art. 

Third, well, Bucky wasn't such an asshole that he could go around stealing from Stark's warehouses looking for old weapon caches without compromising his own already flimsy moral code. But he knew people who would and there's a voice in his head that was throwing a tantrum of the 'if I can't have it you can't either' variety. Fixing this problem could maybe, potentially, put him in Tony Stark's good graces and he may rethink his decision if there's better accountability for any new designs he may make. 

If everything fails, if he got found out and fired, then Bucky was taking his brand new corporate Starkphone with him. It'd do as a self-consolation gift. 

That, and his new suit that looked nothing like a uniform. 

The job had its perks and paid so well it was making Bucky rethink all his life choices. 

***

A medical team was corralling away that smarmy Stane guy when Bucky first met Tony Stark in person. Some part of him wanted to fanboy really hard and gush about his baby and take out his red basilong that he took everywhere with him and ask for an autograph. The winning side, the one with too much Winter Soldier in it, eventually calmed his heartbeat down and stared at the poor man with empty dead eyes and stiff menacing body language. 

Thank you hydra intimidation training course for making social interactions even more awkward than when he was a teenager with a crush and pulling pigtails. 

The comparison wasn't that far off. Stark had yet to button up his shirt, maybe because of shock at the unexpected betrayal and assault in his own home, but perhaps also because Bucky had dropped from the vents directly on top of Stane as he was setting up the reactor extractor and had proceeded to twist the man's neck with his thighs. Just enough to paralyze from the neck down but not enough to kill, just like he had taught the little widows so many decades ago. 

The crack of crushed bones had been particularly loud. 

"So, since when did I have a personal ninja and how can I get you to work for me?" Stark asked, looking bewildered and a bit unsure since Bucky was still staring at him like a total creeper. 

Bucky tried to tone it down a bit and coughed, "I already work for you. Security analyst officer, delta team."

Stark stared right back, "Delta team deals with my cars, not even my itinerary or my bikes, just my cars," He gestured around to the destroyed vent and the other security personel milling about what was basically an attempted murder crime scene, "That. Was _not_ a car robbery."

"He took out the entire security system for the house. It included the garage," Bucky shrugged. 

It was such bullshit Stark was speechless for all of three seconds. 

"Okay, let's just forget your reasons, that's fine I'll allow it, my point is," Stark took a deep breath, right hand on his chest and taping nervously letting light come through, "the point I'm trying to make is, you saved my life, literally appeared out of freaking nowhere, almost gave me a second heart attack and saved me from Obie, uh, Stane," Stark looked lost for a moment before continuing more firmly, "What do you want from me?" 

And Bucky knew he was in the deepest of trouble. Because his plans were working and he felt like such an ass that it was all going so perfectly. He was an emotionally manipulative ass, and now there was no part of him that wanted guns or blades or phones. All Bucky wanted was to put a shock blanket around Stark and make him some warm soup. He had no idea where the soup idea was coming from but it had something to do with cold winters and wrecking coughs. 

They were in Malibu though. 

He settled for gently pushing Stark to sit down on the sofa with the most pillows and wrap him into a burrito with the thickest throw blanket lying around. 

"What-" Stark protested in outraged disbelief but he already looked less pale. 

"I'm not going to lie," Bucky confessed sheepishly, "I had plans when I started this job and this is not how they were supposed to go," Hopefully that was vague enough, "but I did not save you so I could take advantage of your generosity."

"You’re really not," Stark shook his head with a frustrated frown, "It's not taking advantage if I'm offering, so ask me something, a raise, a paid vacation, a house or an island, I don't know, my price range is kind of variable like that. Think about it as doing it so I don't feel indebted to you. Do it to make _me_ feel better, come on."

They stared at each other and through each other's bullshit. 

It took a long second before Bucky relented, he had never tried to hide this particular weakness of his after all. 

"Alright then." Bucky said and crossed his arms.

Stark's eyes light up in anticipation, "What is it?"

"I want you to make me ninja shurikens and engrave your autograph on them." 

There was a pause during which Bucky could physically feel the blush heating up his cheeks. 

Stark blinked.

"_What._"

**Author's Note:**

> Send me kudos and comments like shurikens, I'll catch them :D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Rifling Matter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021272) by [Penndragon27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penndragon27/pseuds/Penndragon27)
  * [[Podfic] Bad Scoping Mechanisms](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21046568) by [MistbornHero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistbornHero/pseuds/MistbornHero)


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